SQL DELETE Statement :

In SQL DELETE statement is used to delete rows or records in a table. We can either delete single row or multiple rows using delete statement.

SQL DELETE Syntax :

DELETE FROM table_name
WHERE column_name = record_value;

In the above syntax we can delete all the records where following condition holds to be true -

column_name = record_value;

Demo Database :

Consider the following demo table -

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | ENAME    | AGE | ADDRESS   | SALARY   |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
|  1 | Ramesh   |  32 | Kota      |  2000.00 |
|  2 | Raj      |  23 | Delhi     |  1500.00 |
|  3 | Anand    |  21 | Karachi   |  2000.00 |
|  4 | Saurabh  |  25 | Mumbai    |  6500.00 |
|  5 | Poonam   |  29 | Bhopal    |  8500.00 |
|  6 | Komal    |  23 | Pune      |  4500.00 |
|  7 | Omkar    |  24 | Indore    | 10000.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

SQL DELETE Statement : Delete single record

DELETE FROM employee
WHERE name = 'Raj';

It will delete single record as the above database have only one record having name = ‘Raj’. Query results into -

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | ENAME    | AGE | ADDRESS   | SALARY   |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
|  1 | Ramesh   |  32 | Kota      |  2000.00 |
|  3 | Anand    |  21 | Karachi   |  2000.00 |
|  4 | Saurabh  |  25 | Mumbai    |  6500.00 |
|  5 | Poonam   |  29 | Bhopal    |  8500.00 |
|  6 | Komal    |  23 | Pune      |  4500.00 |
|  7 | Omkar    |  24 | Indore    | 10000.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

Now consider the below query -

DELETE FROM employee
WHERE ID > 3;

Here all records whose ID > 3 will be deleted.

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | ENAME    | AGE | ADDRESS   | SALARY   |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
|  1 | Ramesh   |  32 | Kota      |  2000.00 |
|  2 | Raj      |  23 | Delhi     |  1500.00 |
|  3 | Anand    |  21 | Karachi   |  2000.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

If we did not put where condition then all the records from the table will be deleted and query will results into 0 records.

DELETE FROM employee;

will results into

0 record(s) found